


I Used To Be Addicted To Time Travel, But That's All In The Past Now

by sian1359



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-08 11:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12253455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359
Summary: How the crew of the Waverider and of the Raza meet.





	I Used To Be Addicted To Time Travel, But That's All In The Past Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themisto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themisto/gifts).



> This takes place after the end of season 3 on Legends, and between the season 3 Dark Matter episodes #9 & 10, with a couple of liberties taken. All data checks were done through wikias and other websites, as I didn't rewatch the episodes in question and relied on memory and spot checks when I could.
> 
> Title stolen from a list of time travel puns.
> 
> Beta done by the usual suspects that will be added after the reveals.

**1.**  


"Okay, gang," Sara said as the group headed back to the _Waverider_ 's open ramp. "We're going to take our own vacation since we're down three with Amaya and Nate off to deal with their newly-raised personal issues, and with Rip taking an indefinite leave here in 1874 so he can continue to pretend that he and Hex are just friends." An eye roll and finger quotes accompanied her last words before she pivoted back forward and up the ramp.  

Jax sniggered in agreement, not that Ray thought any different, other than he thought it more sad than humorous. Life was too short to deny love, as they'd all had ample reminders of throughout the last year. Martin's slightly amused, slightly superior expression in response wasn't unexpected – he was happily married after all, and now Martin and Clarrissa had a lovely adult daughter who shared her father's passion for physics thanks to a few, harmless changes to the past the team had had a hand in. Mick, also predictably, showed no reaction to Sara's teasing words, or to Rip's inability to admit his feelings.

Sara wasn't done, however. "Mick, you've been championing Aruba for a while now, and it does look like a lovely destination. Did you have a particular year in mind for the visit? From what I've been reading, they've had several Independence Day celebrations worth noting for their fireworks, along with their New Year one for the last Millennium. The beaches are supposed to be awesome year round, so if you did have a specific time in mind..."

She trailed off, obviously waiting for Mick to chime in.

Ray couldn't help but frown when Mick stayed silent and his basic blank scowl changed first to surprise, then suspicion instead of happiness or at least satisfaction.  

Sure, Mick's constant suggestion that they go to Aruba instead of where they'd needed to be had been annoying and then inappropriate given the team's need to stop Thawne and the others from rewriting time and history; even Ray had ragged on him about it a couple of times. But it wasn't like it had ever been a _bad_ idea – just the timing of it. Aruba sounded great, _now_. They'd all taken a few hits both physically and emotionally from the Legion.  

Ray could only imagine what seeing Snart again, even if the one working with the Legion hadn't been _their_ Snart, had done to Mick. Finding out that 'Doomworld' Snart had had no problem killing a time remnant Mick with an ice spear through the back was still giving Ray nightmares. Mick's sleep was also broken, but he'd not even lied about why, always turning Ray's concern around and simply apologizing for disrupting Ray's sleep – or offering sex instead of talking. And Ray had been a more than willing participant in both the sex and putting off the discussion, which he now felt immensely guilty over.  

Sara, in agreeing to Aruba – in going so far as to having taken the time to investigate when to go so that Mick might best enjoy it – seemed like a vote of confidence and trust in Ray's mind, but obviously not so to Mick. Which made Ray wonder if he'd been reading Mick wrong all along. It wasn't like Ray didn't know his and Mick's relationship wasn't true love, but he'd hoped – no, knew – it was more than just convenience or Mick making sure he still had someone on his side aboard the ship. Mick just wasn't a player. He wouldn't have bothered with faking feelings of affection if he'd just wanted to fuck.

He could blame Mick's mistrust of Sarah's motivations solely on the Legion of Doom, but Ray had had a hand in making Mick feel underappreciated during their most recent mission. Again. Unlike the others, Ray hadn't believed for a moment that Mick had truly turned on them when the Legion had beckoned, but when it had been Snart expecting his partner to have his back … Ray hadn't been able to help feeling unable to compete with Leonard Snart as a partner or a lover.  

"Aruba isn't all topless beaches, is it?" Martin asked to disrupt the awkward silence that had followed them all the way to the bridge. He gave an askance side-eye Jax's direction as he took his seat on the bridge and pulled down the safety harness. "I'm not sure – "

"I'm not going to go all hormonal if I see some ti – breasts," Jax interrupted with an exasperated sigh and a side-eye back before taking his own seat.

" _I_ might," Sara offered from the pilot's station. "But no, Martin," she answered the original question with a tone that sounded both chiding and amused. "No topless sunbathing on the public beaches. We'd have to go to one of the private ones."

"Which we totally can," Ray piped up as he sat down next to Mick, thinking the offer might cheer Mick up even if his current interests didn't include _breasts_ any more than Ray's did. They were still nice to look at –

"You're serious about Aruba, Blondie?" Mick's voice rumbled from deep in his chest, skeptical but also with an undercurrent of what Ray hoped was interest, finally.  

Sara turned around and made sure to meet Mick's gaze with a calm and steady one of her own. "I'm serious, Mick. You saved us, Time, and the world when you had every reason not to." The faint smile she offered seemed a lot more real than the grin she'd been sporting earlier. "Seeing you turn from what you wanted, instead to do the right thing, helped me chose the same over Laurel," she admitted, her eyes dampening but also shining in a new commitment to their mission.

"Some of it might have been ego on my part instead of drawing inspiration, but it was still because of you," she further acknowledged with a tip of her head. "So you get to choose where we're going on vacation, at least for the first few days. We'll play it by ear if we want to stay longer, or move on to somewhere else."

Ray was pretty sure he was the only one close enough – paying attention enough – to hear the little sigh that Mick let out, along with the release of tension in his shoulders.  

"If you really mean it's my choice, forget Aruba. I've always wanted to see a big eruption."

"You mean like Vesuvius and Pompeii?" Jax asked, sounding interested himself.

Martin couldn't help but sound pedantic any more than he could keep from adding in the volcano's classification like he was back in the classroom. "They are not two different volcanoes or eruptions, Jax. Vesuvius is the name of the somma-stratovolcano that buried Pompeii."  

"Uh, there's always Krakatoa," Ray offered quickly to stave off some kind of argument. 

While Jax looked annoyed, Mick aimed a positively thunderous look at Martin.  

"Or Kilauea, Pinatubo, or that recent one in Iceland," Ray continued.

"Eyjafjallajökull."  

Mick, surprisingly, was the one who named it, and without sounding like he'd mangled the pronunciation, but then maybe it wasn't so surprising. If he was picking a volcano eruption as the thing he most wanted to see on a vacation, he probably knew the names of all the big ones.  

"Seen it," Mick continued, confirming Ray's conclusion. "Along with outpourings of Kilauea a couple times. Ain't like you can get close though, not unless you also want to die, which I ain't interested in. Ain't interested in watching something where a lot of other people die from it either."

Mick surprised Ray again with that qualification, and again Ray felt rather ashamed that there was still a part of his brain which associated Mick with being a stupid, brutal villain despite _knowing_ Mick had never really been that. That Mick was instead a chameleon who reflected the personality that others expected out of him.  

"What did you have in mind?" Sara asked, sounding neither surprised, guilty, or disappointed that Mick wasn't meeting expectations.  

She'd always been less judgmental when it had come to both Mick and Snart, though. Not just seeming not to mind that they'd been lifelong criminals and had gotten involved in assisting Rip with his mission for selfish reasons rather than any altruistic motivations, but having been friendly with the two before they'd earned the rest of the team's trust – Ray's included.  

Mick shrugged. "Figured Gideon could get us closer than any other way, and if we're already watching from the _Waverider_ , we could go for something really exotic. There's supposed to be some super volcanoes on Io."

"The _Waverider_ is capable of space travel?" Ray blurted out.

"We did follow you to the moon when you were on _Apollo 13_ ," Jax reminded him.

"Well, yeah," Ray started protesting. "But – "  

"You thought the folk that figured out how to warp time, didn't also figure out how to warp space?" Mick was laughing at him, but he looked more fond than mocking.

Ray couldn't answer that, because he _hadn't_ ever thought about it before now, always too caught up for once in exploring the results, to have considered the process and the technology. Rip had encouraged that, Ray could now see. The Time Master had kept the science vague and even gone so far as to lock up most of the data about the future, claiming it for everyone's own good, lest they affect their own futures by knowing things too early. Ray could see how learning the mechanics behind time travel long before they had been discovered could mess up the timeline, but there were still so many things they could have learned and explored if they'd just thought things out to their natural conclusions.

"If that's true, why weren't the Time Masters also in space exploration?" Martin asked, seemingly just as bothered by the loss of possibilities as Ray was. "The answers they could have found – "

Mick's expression turned to something like pity, which took Martin aback, since it was such a reversal of roles.  

"One of the first things the inventors did was get those answers," Mick told them. "Like did an asteroid really kill off the dinosaurs or was it volcanoes, both things, or something different? And what caused the Moon to split off from the Earth, why Mars is so small and when did it lose its atmosphere? Or what really did happen to the Mayans and Neanderthals?"

"But so what?" he went on. "Knowing that didn't mean there were now people out on the planets and shit. They just won some bar bets, and wrote a bunch of books only eggheads like you bothered to read. And once everyone did have the answers, there wasn't any reason to keep going out there, not until they found aliens with their own warp technologies involving time and space. Fear and jealousy, competition and greed. Those are mankind's motivations, Professor, not answers for their own sake."

Ray didn't want to believe that any more than Martin did, despite all of the examples they'd seen in both the past and future.  

"Do you know the answers to any of those questions?" he still had to ask.

He got a shrug. "Sorry, babe. That stuff wasn't important to the Chronos mission, so it wasn't part of training beyond 'keep what you know to yourself'. Guess you'll have to save everyone and everything next time and then choose some egghead talk or something in the future as our next vacation."

Ray wasn't sure which to be more proud about: that Mick had called him babe in front of the others, or that he'd actually mentioned Chronos. Even now, more than a year later, Mick didn't mention his time as Chronos often, not even when Ray tried to get him to own up to the things that were bothering him. Ray knew there had been torture involved, months or maybe years, that the Time Masters had spent conditioning Mick to think he was a bounty hunter named Chronos, but little else beyond the crew of the _Waverider_ being one of his main targets.  

For all that Mick and Snart had been partners in every sense of the word for many years, Ray didn't think Mick had talked to Snart all that much more about his time as Chronos either.

"Okay, then. Gideon, can you find us a spectacular eruptions on Io from your records?" Sara asked the ship's AI, effectively shutting down further conversation about scientific discovers the Time Masters had relegated to the past, and any further questions about Mick's time as Chronos. Not that anyone looked particularly upset over the latter.

"An unmanned spacecraft named _Galileo_ observed one during a flyby in November of 1999, while _New Horizons_ recorded one during February 2007," Gideon answered with her usual efficiency. "Both were complete with lava fountains that lasted for a few days. Now, in 2023 – "

"One of the ones observed in our past are good enough, Gideon," Sara interrupted the AI. "Right, Mick?"

Mick nodded. " _Ghost Rider_ came out in 2007. It was a good year."

Fortunately, Mick didn't say it had been a good movie, not that Ray didn't enjoy his own share of clunkers, like the _Matrix_ sequels, or –  

"2007 it is," Sara affirmed. "Gideon, can you get us in the vicinity of Io, a few hours before the eruption with the fountains?"

"Of course, Captain Lance."

"A couple of hours early?" Martin asked.

His expression was one of concern, but Ray doubted it was from any perceived danger. Gideon was more than capable of getting them away from any mistimed or over enthusiastic explosion when she knew it was coming.  

"You're not really planning on keeping us there for days –"

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm making popcorn for the show," Sara said as her fingers flew over the controls while she did her part in coordinating their flight with Gideon. "But first," Sara continued, "I'm taking a nap."

The ship slipped into the time stream but then shuddered in a displacement unlike any previous time jump. Ray just had time to cast blame Sara's way for jinxing them, despite knowing full well that jinxes weren't real. He'd long gotten over time travel side effects, but as his nerves all seemed to fire and twist, he knew he was heading for his own 'nap'. Not that there was anything restful about losing consciousness.

***********

Ray regained consciousness, confused and convinced he was being strangled and pummeled. He started to struggle; sure, he was being held, but that only caused him to fight harder and try to protest. His words sounded like gibberish in his own ears at first. Abruptly his incoherent complaints made sense, as did Mick's gravelly reassurances. He could also distinguish Sara calling for Gideon and Martin's concern for Jax. Ray's strangler turned out to be the safety harness he'd slipped down on; the pummeling, Mick's actually rather gentle pats against the side of his face as he coaxed Ray to wake up.  

"Yeah, I'm awake, I'm okay," Ray tried with words this time. Mick's pats turned into a simple hold, something that might even have been called a caress, except they didn't do that kind of thing in public, even if the rest of the team knew the two of them had stumbled their way into a relationship several months back. He lifted an arm and squeezed the wrist that lay against his jaw. "I'm okay," he repeated, softly this time.

Mick kept his hold for another couple of seconds, then gave a short nod. They both then let go at the same time. Mick remained kneeling in front of Ray's chair as Ray skootched himself back upright and then hit the mechanism to release the harness.  

"Traveling in space messes us up more than traveling in time?" he asked, looking over to see a concerned Martin hovering over Jax, who was only now groaning and starting to wake.

"Nobody's puked," Mick offered up.  

Considering Ray was one of the ones who had vomited during one of his first time-jumps, he supposed Mick was right, not that losing consciousness was a walk in the park either – nor something to just dismiss.

"Gideon is off-line," Sara told them, her voice firming up to anger from the shakiness they all seemed to be feeling. She stabbed at a control and the images she must have seen on her console began cycling across the view screen. "That's not Io, Jupiter, or home to any Kansas I know of."

"Maybe it's Oz," Mick proposed with a bark of harsh laughter as he rose and helped Ray take his own feet.

 _That_ was a planet, one more Earth's size than Saturn's, according to the scale across the bottom of the image, and one that reflected an almost neon green coloring, indeed similar to the color Hollywood used for the towers of the Emerald City.

"Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my," Ray offered.

"So who remembered their ruby slippers?" Jax asked as he shakily got to his feet and took his own look at what they were facing.

"If it wasn't Gideon, I think we're screwed," Sara answered. "That's not our solar system, and the ship says we're in the year 2607, not 2007. Ray, Martin – hell, Mick, you probably have more experience. Is there anything you can do to get Gideon back on line?"  

Mick frowned at her for a moment, then moved toward the central unit and started poking a few buttons. Martin looked like he was going to say something, but Ray waved him off since screens none of them had seen before took the place of the planet.

"She's already coming back on line," Mick told them, thankfully. "It's going to take some time, but the diagnostics don't show any permanent damage."

"You – you have – " Martin began.

"Spent years on his own timeship," Sara reminded them. "So how long is some time?" she then directed to Mick.

He shrugged. "Probably about an hour before the voice interface comes back. The ship's sensors are already up, as is life support and shielding, obviously."

"Well, I guess a nap is out, and I need something more filling than popcorn," Sara said as she moved away from the front of the bridge. "Jax, I'm going to go ahead and take half an hour. The con is yours, if you feel up to it."

He nodded, not eagerly, but also not like he still had the headache.

"Martin, Ray, if you can figure out anything of use, like where we are, from the sensor readings, or maybe how we ended up so far off course, have at it," Sara continued her orders. "Mick, do you mind joining me in the galley?"

"As long as something more filling includes booze," he answered.

"I promise."

Since Sara had made it obvious she wanted to talk to Mick alone, Ray didn't argue for coming along, even while he doubted there was much he or Martin could do. At least there was the unknown planet right there in front of him. If nothing else, he wanted to see what was in the atmosphere to make the planet appear green.  

Of course, it turned out that the first time travelers had the right of it. After determining that the planet was uninhabited, there wasn't really a point in spending a lot of time studying it, since it wasn't like he could pass on the information to anyone once they got back home. Assuming they got back home, which was all Ray should be focused on.

He turned to charting the stars in the field of view of the planet, checking for binary systems and potentially identifiable nebula in the hopes of being able to match some of them to data he and Martin had collected their first year on the _Waverider_. Gideon had a listing and charts of which stars had gone supernova as well as when they had, along with other observable variations around Earth's visible night skies, of course, but in the early days before they'd become comfortable trusting Gideon – or Rip – Snart had talked the two of them into seeing if they could identify _when_ they were on their own, in the hopes that they'd be able to return back to 2016 if something had happened to Rip and Gideon refused to assist.  

Ray took a break from the data only when Mick returned to the bridge and relieved Jax. Jax, in turn, talked Martin into taking his own break, the two of them leaving the bridge and leaving Ray and Mick alone.

"Did something like this ever happen to Chronos?" Ray asked as he left the center console and moved down to stand beside Mick.

"Getting lost?" Mick shook his head. "Always had a target, and the Time Bastards always knew where the ship needed to get sent. Thought it was tech, something the AIs could track, but now I'm guessing they just used the Oculus to find their anomalies. I'm thinking the only thing safe about Hunter's time fragments was that the Oculus didn't keep track of what happened within them, since that stuff didn't directly interfere with the timeline that needed protecting."

"It did certainly look like the Hunters had no trouble finding us in Salvation," Ray agreed.  

Mick nodded and the both of them smiled in memory – Mick, probably because he'd proven himself no longer under the Time Masters' control when he'd helped kill the mercenaries that they'd sent to kill the team, while Ray was more thinking about how he'd, however briefly, became the town's sheriff. Becoming "John Wayne" for a day, was right up there with being named a Knight of Camelot, as far as some of his best moments,

"Did Chronos ever get sent some _where_ other than Earth?" Ray asked more specifically this time, still carefully referring to Chronos as someone other than Mick. It might now appear that Sara had talked Mick into utilizing some of the knowledge he'd been forced to acquire with regard to time-ships, but that didn't mean Mick was any more ready to admit or deal with being Chronos than before.

"A couple of times. The Dominators aren't the only aliens out there, and some of the renegades or trouble makers thought they could avoid the consequences of their actions by fleeing Earth. Those jumps were different than ones strictly through time, but never anything that made anyone black-out."  

"Well, we have jumped in time as well. Maybe shifting through time and space simultaneous is hard on humans unless you have a Tardis," Ray quipped, trying to lighten the mood and not get caught up again about what it would mean if they were truly lost.

Mick, however, just turned his head and gave him a blank look.

"Come on, really?" Ray protested. "You don't know the Tardis?"

"Is that a _Star Wars_ thing?"

"It's _Dr. Who_ ," Ray answered, only just keeping himself from slapping his hands over his face in exasperation and shame on Mick's behalf. "Just fifty years of some of the best science fiction on television. The Tardis is how the Doctor travels _in_ space and _through_ time. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

Turning back to the controls, though more likely to avoid the conversation than because something needed doing, Mick muttered, " _Star Trek_ has lasted as long, and is more than just tv for kids. Sure, some of the movies were stupid, but they never used bargain basement kitchen utensils in their model making."  

For a moment, Ray didn't really parse the meaning behind the grousing. When he did get it, though, he couldn't help giving Mick an open-handed hit against Mick's bicep, not that it elicited a grunt, much less moved the big, trolling lunkhead.

"The Daleks were and are awesome and plenty scary. You only wish you could come up with something so cool out of a pepper pot, a plunger and a whisk."

"You mean _you_ do," Mick responded with a smile and chuckle. "The Dalek ain't scary and they ain't art. Just a product of cheap-ass budgets and adults thinking kids are dumb enough not to care. No one ever got nightmares about things that got defeated by stairs. Or aliens that looked like humans except for some spirit gum gluing shit to noses, ears and eyebrows," he added, dismissing _Star Trek_ despite his championing of it earlier. And, incidentally, confirming he had some nerd credits himself, however much he would no doubt deny it.

"Word of advice, though?" Mick was still saying. "Don't take an eleven-year-old girl to go see _Starship Troopers_ no matter how much she – or her brother – had a crush on that Doogie Houser guy. Even if he hadn't been playing a Nazi, those giant bugs had us up killing every little damn spider or beetle that Lisa saw for most of a year, even if they were harmless and just trying to survive."

It took him a moment again, to fully get what Mick was admitting, as Ray had only briefly met Lisa Snart during the business with the Pilgrim. Sure, he'd heard from Cisco Ramon how protective Snart had been of his little sister, but Ray hadn't ever stopped to think that if Mick had known Snart from when they'd been sixteen and fourteen respectively and in Juvie, then Mick had also been there at least some of the time. He'd watched Lisa grow up from a little girl to become yet another self-proclaimed Rogue and super villain, now known as the Golden Glider. If Mick had been joining the Snart siblings at movies, sci-fi or not, because she had a crush on some actor, Mick had a bigger, softer underbelly than even the one Ray had discovered for himself.  

"Which would you rather have to fight, one of those bugs, or one of the xenomorphs from the _Aliens_ fran – "

"I am detecting a vessel coming around the dark side of the planet," Gideon warned while simultaneously announcing the AI had completed repairs to her voice interface. "If they continue their current flight path, they will detect our position in the next fifteen minutes."

"Another timeship?" Ray asked, because if it was, this was definitely a trap instead of just most likely one.

Mick must have thought the same, as he was calling the rest of the team back to the bridge.

"The ship does not have a functioning time-drive like ours, but it does give off decaying temporal energy. I cannot identify –"

Having Gideon stop in the middle of any announcement was never a good thing.

"Gideon?" Sara prodded as she arrived ahead of Jax and Martin.

"My apologies, Captain. I … there have been records of this, but it is not something I have personally encountered before, and so I was unprepared and misinterpreting some data. Somehow, we are no longer in our proper universe."

Martin looked excited as well as appalled as he asked; pretty much what Ray felt himself. "When you say _proper_ …"

"The vibrational frequency does not match that of our universe, or that of any of the ones so identified by Cisco Ramon as alternate realities. According to the accessible files from the inbound ship, this universe's Earth is approximately twenty-one light years from our current position. It appears that this universe's humans developed ftl travel utilizing gravity waves and wormhole junctions. There are no mentions of discovering the time-stream."

"I don't suppose you know how to navigate through the multiverse to get us back?" Jax asked before any of the rest of them. He mainly looked ill, and not excited at all.

"I am afraid I do not."  

"Given that meta-humans like Mr. Ramon and the female counterpart he found so quickly after learning of his own powers exist, no doubt there are descendants or an equivalent here in this alternate 2607 – "

"Unfortunately, Professor Stein, I find no more references to meta-humans or the existence of a meta gene in the oncoming ship's database than I have the time stream," Gideon interrupted Martin's attempt to sound reassuring. "There does seem to be evidence of genetic manipulation and augmentation being done to humans in limited forms, but no records of so-called super-heroes or villains having ever inhabited this universe's Earth. Nor the other planets, moons and asteroids humanity expanded out into."

"So the rift we accidentally went through is natural?" Sara asked. 

She didn't seem anymore hopeful of reassurance than Ray expected. If a rift existed linking this universe to theirs, it would have been detected by NASA or someone by now.

"I do not even find evidence of a rift having opened and closed," Gideon responded.

"Then how did we get here?" Jax asked.  

"In the absence of a natural rift or any other phenomenon intrinsic to the make-up of our universes, coupled with no genetic predisposition in the native population to open rifts, I can only conclude that a different form or technology pulled us through. Something I've not encountered before, nor have any record of existing in our universe."

"Technology means someone figured out how to build something, right?" Mick asked. "Then all we have to do is find them, and force them to send us back."

"I don't think it works that way," Martin protested. "The amount of power, not to mention the sheer complexity of such a technology – "

"Why do we care how hard it is to do? Obviously someone figured something out since we're here. So we find them, _and make them do it again_ ," Mick repeated, slowly and forcefully, not just as if he thought Martin was the simple one, but also with a great deal of menace.

Ray couldn't help but be turned on a little. Looking at Mick, you knew he could fuck you up, but for all that Rip, and even Martin, still mostly thought of him as a thug, Mick rarely offered a threat, much less an opinion. When such a threat was on your behalf instead of against you –  

"Mick is right," Sara agreed. "I don't care about the how or even all that much about the why it was done, other than making sure no one does it to us again. Gideon, is the incoming ship the perpetrator?"

"Highly doubtful, Captain. They do not have the power, or the technology from what I am able to scan. My readings indicate a crew of five, along with one early generation AI inhabiting an android body that seems to be handling most of the ship's operations. The planet below us has only a few small outposts on the surface, and again, none of them seem capable of producing the energy that would be needed to shift a ship through time and space. I do suspect there is a moon or some sort of space station that I cannot detect without shifting our position, as the outposts do seem to be transmitting to something above the atmosphere. Although it could also simply be a network of relay stations or satellites, that for some reason do not have analogs on this side of the planet. It may be of no consequence, however, the other thing I have determined is that we are currently within the planetary system identified as HR 8832 in our universe."

Ray knew that one; he'd been keeping up with the Kepler findings of extraterrestrial planets through Gideon's historical records, limiting himself to only what he'd be getting if he'd stayed back on Earth and in his own time. He already knew about too many advancements, although mostly their missions involved changes in society and political climates, not the advancement of the sciences.  

"Twenty-one light years away from home," he told the others. "I suppose, worst case, we can jump back in that Earth's time, not that staying _then_ would work, having there be two of any of us if we're stuck here. But it would be kinda neat to see what kind of people we are, assuming we even exist in this universe "

"We are not going to get stuck here," Sara said decisively. "And we're not going to go sightseeing. If we go to Earth, it's going to be in this time, and only to find the technology we need to get home."

"We could always jump ahead a few years," Jax offered. "Even if the tech isn't commonplace, someone's going to have a record of pulling us here that Gideon can sniff out. It might speed things up."  

"Unless we find out we haven't gotten home by that time. Then we'd be changing our personal timestreams, and while we might have gotten away with it once because of the Spear of Destiny – "

"Which we don't actually know since we didn't stick around long enough to let the ripples of change catch up to us," Martin mentioned, though more as an aside than trying to interrupt or talk over Sara.

" – we can't expect to get away with it again," Sara finished with a scowl Martin's direction. "I, for one, do not want to keep jumping forward, and keep finding out we failed."

"It appears that we will not have to, Captain Lance," Gideon spoke up in the gloomy silence that descended after Sara's statement before anyone else did. "We are now being hailed by the ship I detected, by name although they are expecting to find Captain Hunter."

Sara summed up Ray's feelings exactly; it was never a good idea when a stranger knew your name.

"Well, shit."

  
**2.**

The best thing Three could say about heading toward the ship in front of them was that it didn't look like a warship – or like anything Ferrous Corp had in their fleet. Not one of Mekkei's either. It did look damn advanced, which by all accounts it was, but it didn't bristle with weaponry or logos, and frankly looked more like a pleasure craft than something that could threaten anyone. Other than by its sheer existence, of course.  

Three had been skeptical when it had been brought up – time travel was the stuff of entertainment feeds, after all, not reality. Even with _Raza_ 's own trip back through time notwithstanding, since that had been a fluke as far as Three was concerned.  

But there the damn ship was, right where their newest crew member said it would be, and with no sign of any Corp sponsorship or involvement.

At least not yet, and that was the other big problem that Three had with the _Raza_ 's involvement. On the one hand, some of the bastards in charge of the Corps already knew there was at least one alternate universe out there, and were likely researching ways to breech the barriers so they could exploit even more people and worlds. Further confirmation of that would make those people very unhappy, especially if it became common knowledge and somehow became a path for those now under the thumbs of the different Corps thumbs and looking to escape the escalating war. On the other hand, once one of the Corps found out a ship existed that could easily travel through time, and one that had an AI so far advanced that the Android looked like a talking toaster, they and everyone else would stop at nothing to acquire and use both. It would be the blink drive all over again, but worse. A thousand times worse. With the _Raza_ , once more, stuck in the middle of it, most likely long after the ship and Two's newest best friend disappeared back to where they belonged. 

Three had voted for spacing the stowaway, just like he had all the other additions they'd ended up with over the last few years. But Five had fallen for his pretty eyes, as had the Android, surprisingly. And Six … Six didn't have the stomach for killing anymore, even when it was in the crew's best interest, so Two hadn't even had to give her own opinion. Three couldn't help but think she'd been suckered in herself, given how she'd been so solicitous of the new guy's headaches and insisted on checking him out in the Infirmary every time, despite the Android having the diagnostic training as well as being qualified to administer most treatments including some forms of surgery.  

The new guy wasn't the only one who got headaches either, but did you see Three complaining? No you did not. Three had one right now, yet was here manning the bridge, because someone should be making sure they weren't being lied to – or being sent into a trap.

Not that it looked like a trap. For once. So maybe the new guy wasn't a liar. And he was a _damn_ good thief, despite being unfamiliar with a lot of the tech. He'd picked up on it quick enough, Three supposed, and he did like a sarcastic sense of humor And a good pun. Sometimes.

Okay, there'd been a lot more upsides to this addition to the crew over Tabor's minions. And the downside was mostly potential. All of which would disappear when he did, assuming it happened before the Corps found out the _Waverider_ had even shifted here. Still, it wasn't like Three was going to miss the guy – certainly no more than he had missed Nyx, or One, or, Hell, even Ryo from when he'd simply been Four. Three would just miss the recent ease they'd experienced while gaining supplies or information after things returned to normal.

That ease and, maybe, having someone else around who wasn't apologetic for being who and what he was.

No. Didn't matter. Not when having him here could so easily cost Three his freedom. Or his life.

"The _Waverider_ is here," Three snarled to the others through the comm. "Let's get this done."

"So anxious to get rid of me, Three? I thought we'd bonded during the trip to Merseia."

Three groaned and refrained from turning around, already knowing what he'd see: Cold, no doubt leaning in the hatchway, arms crossed over his chest and legs crossed at the ankles while he looked over in Three's direction with a vague smile and air of superiority.  

Three had come to suspect that the _I-know-shit-that-you-don't_ expression Cold normally wore was no more than a mask, especially since Cold couldn't know more than _Raza_ 's crew, since he was neither from this time or this universe. Not that they'd ever caught Cold making a mistake more than once; if the Android hadn't confirmed Cold was fully human, Three would have thought him another artificial being like her, given his absorption and retention of information.

He also hadn't needed the reminder that he and Cold had spent most of the resupply trip to Merseia cuffed together, arrested totally erroneously, since Merseia was one of the few neutral planets, without a GA presence and beholding to none of the Corporations. Since they had been innocent when Security had arrested them, it only seemed fair that they take advantage of being sequestered and forgotten about for six hours, locked in a small, but not empty security office. They'd broken into both physical and data files and found some interesting dirt on Truffault and Mekkei that Three _knew_ Two would never let them use since, technically, Mekkei considered them mostly allied right now. Working together while cuffed had been painful, both physically and mentally, and something Three would really rather forget.

"Just figured you'd be ready to go home," was how he responded to Cold, however, with a smile just as fake as Cold's. It really was all for the best, getting rid of him. In all the wrong ways, he and Cold were way too much alike, unlikely ever able to become partners or even friends, but instead destined to be rivals that would eventually have to find out who between them was better and not just as a thief, but as a member of the _Raza_ crew and, ultimately, as Two's second in command.

"And you're ready for me to be gone, as well as worried about the _Waverider_ being here bringing the _Raza_ heat. I can respect that. I don't want them chased by the Galactic Authority, or the Corporations either," Cold responded, which wasn't really Three's concern, something Cold apparently read in Three's scowl, given his next words were: "Or the _Raza_ having one more reason to be hunted."

Three suspected Cold was just saying what he thought sounded good since One and Five had finally arrived at the bridge themselves. Both took pains to move past Cold – who hadn't bothered shifting out of their way – without touching him since he was picky about that, though all three of them looked like they enjoyed the interaction.

Jealousy was probably another factor as to why Three didn't want to like Cold; he charmed everyone they came across, while Three just pissed most people off while doing many of the same moves.

"Glad we're all in agreement about not giving anyone a reason to come after us," Two said with rather pointed looks at both Three and Cold.  

Charmed or not, ultimately Two had her priorities straight: the continued well being of her crew. If Frosty was leaving, that was the end of her concern.  

"Now you're sure they're going to want you to go back with them?" she then asked, her expression a little too close to Five's worried one.

Three just shook his head and dropped down on the seat nearest him. Portia Lin, everyone. One of the Galaxy's Most Wanted and even more bad-ass than Three was himself, he could admit. Next, she'd be talking the new ship into staying here to help stop the Corporations War. Three could think of a few things time travel might be useful for – like getting Sarah the help she'd needed in time, or being able to go back and interact with her inside the VR setting she'd created when her consciousness has been uploaded into the ship – but, overall, Three figured it would be just as troublesome as the blink drive had turned out to be. And who's to say changing the past would make for a better future anyway? It seemed to him, that it would be easier to accidentally erase yourself than it would to set yourself up as the man in charge –

The Android interrupted Three's musings as well as whatever story Cold was spinning for Two this time.

"Tell me I haven't missed the new ship and Gideon," it exclaimed, apparently having accessed the upgrade chip, still in its want-to-seem-human phase, complete with new clothes that it must have picked up on Merseia.

Cold had said that his ship's AI never worried about showing signs of emotions, even if it had no body to manifest itself within, and Three wasn't sure if the Android was jealous – or about which part. He did think their time in the past was contributing to its confusion, but Three had enough of his own problems, not to mention worrying about Sarah's, to want to psychoanalyze an android.

"You're still in time to meet Gideon," Five answered it. "We haven't initiated communications yet."

Which the Android should have known, given its interface with the ship, yet one more indication that the Android wasn't acting right.

"Do you want the honors?" Two asked Cold.

"It's your ship. I wouldn't want to presume."

Three snorted as he got to his feet, not interested in being seen when Two initiated a visual link. He pulled Five outside the range of the cameras, and got a nod from Two when Five started to kick up a fuss.

"No legit reason to have a kid aboard," he reminded Five, "not in the minds of most people. Better to keep you as our ace in the hole and not have them thinking up all the other reasons we would have let you stay."

Five subsided, probably more from Two's agreement than Three's argument, but that still vindicated Three's thought and actions. The frown on Six's face as he'd finally made his way to the bridge was likely from Three's tiny bit of manhandling, but a frown from someone his size as he took up a position slightly behind Two was a good thing. If Three didn't know the ship and crew, he'd be pretty intimidated in seeing a woman in charge of someone like Six.

Interestingly, Cold didn't move to where he'd automatically be in the image either.

" _Waverider_ , this is the _Raza,_ the ship off your port bow. We mean you no harm. We wish to talk to Captain Hunter. Please respond."

Three was impressed. Cold's mostly bland and blank expression didn't waver as a minute passed, then several more with no response from the other ship. From what little Cold had said about his former crew mates, Hunter was more repressed than cautious. One of those types thoroughly convinced of his righteousness and cause, and lacking enough regard to survival. Three supposed most anyone from the future would believe in their own superiority, though, as well as relying on their casual knowledge of matters of historical importance. There were certainly enough of those types working for the Corps _without_ the benefit of knowing who'd ultimately come out on top in advance, so no doubt someone _with_ those advantages would be something of an asshole.  

Two was more patient then Three, but then she stared down people like Truffault and various GA goons regularly, often from the same stance and position. She didn't seem bored or bothered by the wait, and Three supposed that since the _Waverider_ hadn't gone sailing off at the first attempt of contact, they were eventually going to respond. He just wasn't sure he wanted to wait himself.

"I could attempt to contact Gideon directly," the Android offered when five minutes had passed. "I believe that she has actively scanned us as I am scanning their ship, so it should take little – "

"Not a good idea, Android," Cold said. "Gideon has been able to hack other AIs, and I can't say she won't try with you."

"Okay," the Android replied in that way it had, immediately dropping the idea as if it had scrubbed it from its circuits.  

If there was anything that pegged the Android as an artificial intelligence, it was its reluctance to stand up for its own suggestions and argue. Of course, sometimes it just did what it wanted to anyway, no argument and no indication it had disobeyed or gone against a crew member's suggestion, but that was actually a pretty common trait they all had, and was probably one of the few things that had the Android fitting in with this crew of mercs and outlaws. Three was not one to throw stones –

" _Raza_ , this is Sara Lance," they heard finally. The voice continued, with the screen changing from a real time image of the ship's exterior, to that of a strong-looking woman with her own muscle-man standing behind her.  

Seeing one or both of them caused Cold to lose his cool and his mask, his expression turning to surprise and a brief glimpse of yearning, which at least seemed to prove that Cold had been with them instead of being after them. Three had never been sure enough to call Cold's motivations either way, though he'd been leaning toward revenge over reunion, though probably that spoke more of Three than it did Cold.  

Outside of Sarah, there'd never been anyone Three would have gone to so much trouble to reconnect with.  

"Rip Hunter has ceded the _Waverider_ to his crew and I am now the captain," Lance continued. "Who am I speaking to?"

"And how did you bring us here?" someone could be heard saying in the background.  

Cold gave a chuff of laughter and a shake of his head.  

So he had someone like Six over there, who too often forgot you were never supposed to reveal your hand until you had to, since you never knew what the other side might see as a vulnerability. One more tick in the reunion column.

"Fine, Ray. And what was your purpose in bringing us here?" Lance relayed the question with her own twist, though it was too late to mitigate the damage that might be construed from admitting things were already out of your control. By her expression and tone, Lance knew it too, and was simply resigned to it.

"I needed a lift home," Cold spoke out just as Two started to answer, moving into the camera's visual range.

It was kind of satisfying to see other people thrown by Cold's tendency for dramatics and making a grand entrance. Lance looked stunned, but it was her enforcer who looked completely shattered, as did the other man who came in frame on the screen to grab at the enforcer's arm. Cold had never fully explained how he'd managed to lose his ship, just that he had. Three had figured it'd been accidental, like them turning up in the other _Raza_ 's universe, or their own trip back in time, but now he was beginning to suspect that whatever had happened to Cold – and whatever he'd done to bring the _Waverider_ over to him – his crew had written him off. Normally, for a tight crew, that only happened after some real time had passed. Or they had gotten firm proof that Cold couldn't come back. Considering that Cold had said his people already knew alternate universes existed, there were only a few ways people that close could be convinced to give up – especially if they'd overthrown the Captain who might have tried to stop them from finding their friend.

"But you were dead!" an old man exclaimed as he and a kid also moved to stand behind Lance and her enforcer. "The explosion. We sifted through miles of debris. There was literally nothing left bigger than a breadbox."

Yeah, that was pretty good proof. Course, Three had his own experience about what it meant if they hadn't found a body –

Lance's eyes suddenly narrowed and her face took on a fierce bearing. "How do we know you're our Leonard Snart," she asked abruptly. "We've already run into one false you."

It wasn't funny, the sudden rise of tension on both sides, the clear danger they might be in if Cold couldn't convince them, since Three hadn't really believed the other ship had no weapons, but he couldn't help but snigger at Cold's real name – even Two cracked a smile upon hearing it. Yet, he couldn't blame Cold for not giving it, when the rest of them had explained why they still answered to Three, Two, Five and Six instead of the names they'd been born with.  

"Mick played Captain and Tennille for our first bar brawl?" Cold offered teasingly, but then quickly sobered. "I don't suppose telling you that there is something to the Einstein–Cartan theory and baby universes on the other side of black holes or that information can escape from a black hole will mean anything to anyone other than the Professor and Palmer, but hey, given how we know the timestream exists, as does the speed force and, hell, how the Oculus Wellspring could be built and misused, is it that hard to imagine that a death outside of time and at the hands of an exploding temporal computer isn't like getting shot through the heart or the head? I may not be your Len, exactly, but I'm the Len – the _only_ Len – that came out of that destruction. You don't want me on the ship, fine, but I'll ask, out of respect for what your Len did, at least take me back to my universe and time."

Well, now, that had been quite a mouthful, and Three had understood next to none of it, but obviously Lance had understood enough so that her suspicious expression eased.

"What did I tell you at the Vanishing Point, just before I dragged Mick back to the _Waverider_?" she asked, her tone much softer.  

For some reason, that brought a smirk back to Cold's face.

"You didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, Sara. The kiss was nice, but we were both using the other as stand-ins."

"That kiss was great from my side, and you know it, you ass! Yours… " She trailed off and shrugged her hands and a shoulder. "At least you're not another false Snart, given the last one was happier to kill Mick than kiss him."   

Ooh, Cold hadn't liked hearing that. And, Mick, huh? Too bad Cold had never mentioned his preference. It might not have felt like cheating on Sarah with another guy. Not that Sarah hadn't told Three that he shouldn't feel guilty if he did end up with someone else. She was dead, after all – just a disembodied consciousness inside a computer matrix. Being with her in VR was good, fantastic given the alternative, and he could convince his brain a lot of things were real there, but not sex. VR sex was just another form of masturbation –

"I guess I'm willing to give it a try," Lance was saying as Three tuned back into the larger conversation. "But we're more of a democracy now that Rip's taking a break from the _Waverider_ , so it's not just up to me. Mick, are you okay with this? R – "

"Lisa is so fucking going to kill you, you fucker," the big guy growled.

Lance laughed.  

"I guess that's a yes, then," she and Two said at the same time, and shared a matching smile between them.

Which was interesting, but Three had already decided his preferred keeping his anatomy intact and had put Two off limits. Plus, if he was going to fantasize about two women, Sarah and Two had gotten him to sleep more than once already. Also, he was a little more intrigued to find out the big guy was apparently Mick, who still had the Fed-looking guy hanging onto his arm. It looked like Cold was wondering about that too, but Three might have been mistaken; looking back at Cold, his expression was his normal smirk. Three didn't really care, since any drama that might result was going to happen off the _Raza_. He was just bored with how long this was taking.

"Please, we have to find out more about his Einstein–Cartan comment," the Fed piped up.

"I want to know how he even _knows_ about the Einstein–Cartan theory," the old guy asked on the heels of Fed's comment.

"Sure you want to go back to that?" Six asked Cold.

Cold gave one of his truer smiles. "Sorry, but it's no fun when stealing makes you the good guy," he responded. "Besides, while I like a challenge well enough, you're all just committing slow suicide here, trying to fight the Corporations as a single, scrappy ship of wanna-be heroes."

That earned him a scowl from Six and a raised brow from Two, but neither of them stopped Cold from finally giving the answer to the question Two had been asking since they'd firsthand discovered Cold's skills in planning and tactics, something even Three could admit the rest of them lacked. Too many years of raging against authority alone and mostly just for the chaos and some short-term gratification, with no end-game other than to keep doing it until they got stopped. That tactic really hadn't changed with their memory wipes and a better sense of comradeship.

"You want to win?" Cold continued, captivating not only the rest of the _Raza_ 's crew with his drawl and particular and peculiar way of phrasing – the Android included – but also the _Waverider_ 's. "You need to take them on as equals. Get in tight with one of them, tighter than you hope you are with Mekkei now, become indispensable, then take over. Do that, and you might get taken seriously instead of being viewed as a pawn at best, or something to eventually be chased and put down."

"You make it sound like it's easy," Five said bitterly, but then she'd interacted with Cold more than the rest of them, since he hadn't seemed to mind having someone so much younger than him hanging around, asking him questions and trying to get him interested in the weird things she did to occupy her time when the _Raza_ was between missions. This was beginning to look like losing Six all over again to the mining colony. Before they'd gone back and bailed Six's ass out when Ferrous had come calling. Five had been mopey and sad-eyed for weeks; something Three didn't really want to experience again.

"Nothing worth having is ever easy, kid," Cold told her. "But this," he said with a gesture to the ship, "this isn't sustainable. You've been lucky so far. At some point, though, killing you is going to be more profitable than trying to extract whatever intel they think you have. If you're going to fight, you have to fight smart, though even then, it's just as likely to get you killed."  

He shrugged then, his expression turning self-deprecating and, yeah, Three guessed he did know something about what he was saying.

"We go to ground, they're still going to be hunting us," Three shot back anyway, because it wasn't like he hadn't thought through the alternatives himself. He might not care about doing the right thing as much as the others, but as long as that altruism kept him alive, and with people he mostly could trust, he'd keep backing Two's play.

"Thus, the slow suicide. I'd say you should come to our universe instead, but meeting duplicates of yourself never ends well, and I imagine at least one or two of you exist in our twenty-seventh century."

"No matter the odds or outcome, I think we've all chosen to stay where we are," Two said. "This universe might be flawed, but it's the one we know, and I'm not willing to abandon it on the hope that things might be better. I think I've also had enough of time travel. Living in your time was just weird."

Cold shrugged again. "So how are we going to do this? Is one of you going to take me to the _Waverider_ , or are we heading back to Merseia and handle the transfer on the ground?"  

"Considering the trouble you got into on Merseia, no chance," Two said. "I'm not going to burn one of the last neutral ports even we can show up at." She turned her attention back to the people on the _Waverider_. "We'll come out to you. That said, if you destroy my shuttle or kill any of my crew, I promise you that Cold will die too, which eliminates your opportunity to go back to your universe. And then I'll call down the Corporations on your ass to hunt you for the rest of your lives, no matter what time you try to flee to."

Lance didn't look intimidated, or upset by the warning. "Just as I'll show you and your stupid-ass Corporations what having a time ship means, if you take out any of my crew." she countered with a smile as sharp and as beautiful as the one Two had given her.  

That earned her a genuine smile from Two, and: "Too bad we don't have time to hit Merseia for a drink before everyone goes on their way. I think I would have liked to get to know you better, Captain Lance."

"And I, you, Captain of the _Raza_."

What? Oh, right, Two had gotten interrupted by Cold before she'd introduced herself.  

"I'm touched," Cold spoke up. "If I thought a drink is all the two of you would partake in, I'd say we had the time and should let you scratch that itch. Only that's not the itch you'd be scratching, is it, ladies?"

Surprisingly, Two actually blushed at that, while Lance simply laughed and said, "It'll be good to have you back, Len. Mick, Ray, why don't you meet their shuttle at the docking bay. You can fill Len in on some of the changes since we last saw him. Like all of the changes," she suggested with no trace of subtlety.

"I can't wait." Eagerness as well as the sarcasm colored Cold's words.

"Six, do you mind pulling piloting duties?" Two asked him.

"That's fine."

For a moment, Three thought something weird was going to happen and moved his hand toward his sidearm in response to Cold doing the same, but he was only releasing the ties of the holster that he then removed and handed over, along with his comm unit, to the Android, giving it a brief nod of his head before raising it and turning partway toward the view screen that showed the connection was still open between the two ships:

"Gideon, the Android is dying to meet you. Why don't you introduce yourself, but no hacking your ancestor. You wouldn't have been born if it hadn't been for ones like her."

The Android looked ridiculously pleased when they heard, "I would be happy to, Mister Snart. And welcome back," from a voice that hadn't yet spoken. The Android then expressed wonder before falling into the kind of blankness it wore when it was deeply submersed in the _Raza_ 's system.  

Two didn't look quite so happy about the communion, but she didn't do anything to stop it, and accepted the handshake from Cold, her expression then softening even more when he accepted a rib-squeezing hug from Five before giving Three his own nod and letting Five go with as he followed Six off the bridge.

Three wasn't bothered. He didn't like touchy-feely goodbyes either.

  
**3.**

Ray started pacing the minute they got in front of the airlock and Mick was pretty sure he knew why. He also knew it wouldn’t matter, but that Ray wouldn't believe him. He wasn't sure if Ray would even believe Len, but he figured the two of them would eventually wear Ray down.  

Ray wouldn't be the first lover they'd shared, though he might just be the last, if only because Mick was getting too damn old to keep losing people he cared about. If Ray eventually walked away, they'd let him go, and count themselves lucky for the time they had shared. Mick figured only death, again, would split him and Lenny up, since this last time it hadn't been another temporary parting out of a disagreement.  

"And you were worried I was the one who'd develop an ulcer," he chided and reached out a hand to snag Ray and stop his nervous movement.

"Yes, well, like you said, Gideon will fix it," Ray snipped back. "And an ulcer is the least thing I'm worried about surviving. Putting aside the whole you, me, us thing, I broke his cold gun."

"Oh, right, that. You're right, he'd kill you over that," Mick said with a laugh. "Good thing I had Cisco fix it after the whole Dominators mess. Sorry I forgot to mention it."

"Sorry? You let me stew over that for months. _You_ were angry at me about that for months. I promised Cisco a look at the Atom suit if he'd build me another one, though I guess I now know why he turned me down. I – "

"The _Marauder_ has docked with the _Waverider_ ," Gideon overrode whatever else Ray's was going to blather about. "Do I grant them access, Captain Lance?"

"Damn straight, you do, Gideon," Blondie answered back over the ship-wide. "Mick, Ray, you ready to receive our stray?"

"No," Ray whispered, before almost shouting, "Yes!"

Now that they were right down to it, Mick wasn't sure he wasn't as nervous as Ray himself. He'd already gone through this a couple of times, between the hallucinations and Legion Cold. He already had enough nightmares from those, and all the others reasons in his past. If this turned out to be one more fake-out, Mick was going commandeer the _Waverider_ and kill himself a few time bastards, starting with English, break time bet damned. Taking out the idiots who'd blown up Star Labs and started the whole super hero/villain thing too, just to be sure. Then he'd –

"Mick. Raymond."

Mick hadn't gotten a close look at Len on the other ship. Physically, he looked pretty much the same as all the Len's in his head, one in his skinny phase, not that Len didn't always look one meal away from starvation, thanks to a childhood of just that, and that when he was under stress, he didn't eat. He'd managed to find clothes that looked more like what he usually wore than something futuristic or like he'd become a space pirate. He'd stopped just inside the ship, his back to the now closed airlock, cautious just like always when he was the one who came for Mick after they'd gone their separate ways for some time instead of the other way around, waiting for Mick to say it was okay for him to approach.  

"You died." Mick didn't care if he sounded accusing.

Len nodded, still keeping his distance. "I did."

"Now you're alive." Or suspicious.

"I am."

"Don't do that again." Angry.

"I don't intend to," Len assured him, looking as cocky as ever.  

Untouched by Mick's explosion of emotions, though Mick knew he wasn't as unaffected as he was making out. Mick let him have his illusions for now, especially since Len was still making declarations.

"I've had enough of playing martyr. Next time, I'll freeze someone else's hand to the stick. But not yours. Or yours, either, Raymond," Len added, making Ray jump from being addressed.

"Ah, good. Or thanks?"

Ray was practically cowering behind Mick, close enough that Mick could feel the too close together breaths against his neck.

Okay, so Mick was going to have to get Len to spell it out or Ray was going to fall into a panic attack.

"That promise not to use Ray in a necessary sacrifice extend to something general?"  

Len chuffed one of his little amused laughs over the question; that Mick had even asked the question. He flicked his eyes over Mick's shoulder before returning them to keep Mick's gaze. Ray gave an abrupt, short squeak of fear and took a step even closer to Mick's back.

"Sounds like there might be a reason I would want to kill Raymond, Mick," Len responded, deepening his drawl deliberately and letting some of his Cold persona shine through his entertainment. "I wouldn’t want to make a promise without all the facts."

Mick shook his head. "Nope."

"Then I guess you're safe, Raymond. No need to hide behind Mick. But what about the reverse?" Len suddenly countered, for the first time a look of unease crossing his face. "Sara said something that sounds like you two might have a reason to kill me?"

The question had Ray pausing mid step as he'd begun to move away from Mick to meet Len on his own.  

"I killed Mick?" Len continued, and for a moment looked more pained than just upset. Actually, physically, pained.

"Lenny?" Mick moved forward without pausing or thinking about how he was going off-script himself.  

Len waved away Mick's concern, and straightened back up, though his face remained pinched. "I can see me doing it, now."

"But we went back and undid that," Ray argued, sounded pained himself. "You can't have memories of events that ended up not happening."

The smile Len gave Ray wasn't pretty, and Mick said fuck it to Len's prickly, prudish concern over public displays of affection. He grabbed hold of Len's arm with one hand, and cupped his hand around Len's jaw with his other, holding him still so he could really look him over.

"You need Gideon," was his conclusion.

"No, I need a beer. The headaches are just a remnant of being exposed to the timestream." Len pulled away from the more intimate touch, but let Mick snake an arm around his waist. "Raymond, because I know you're dying to know, you're right, there are no memories. Just flashes of other timelines since I was involved. It seems like I integrated some of the Oculus inside of me when I resurrected. Seeing potential timelines might be interesting, if I could control it."

"That would be one hell of a meta ability. You'd be like Dr. Who, not that they talk about that ability very often. The ability to see all of time and space."

"Not worth it, if you can't turn it off, believe me," Len countered. "Fortunately, for my sake, it doesn't seem to be a permanent affliction. I guess normal humans can't handle temporal energies."

"You were never normal – " Mick began, the same time Gideon said:

"Indeed, they are not, Mr. Snart. Even the Time Masters needed protection like the _Waverider_ or the Chronos armor. If you like, I should be able to chart the amount of temporal energy still inside of you, along with the decay rate."

"As long as I know it isn't permanent, and that I have enough left so I can hone in on the right universe and shift the _Waverider_ back, I can live with the side effects. Though I do have a little more sympathy for the Flash now."

"So you were the one that brought us here?" Ray asked, his nervousness around Len forgotten in his need to be a nerd.

"How about I save the explanations until everyone can hear them – "

"What made you think we haven't been listening in?" Blondie's voice broke in. "But, sure, let's wait to debrief after Gideon checks you out. We can all have a beer."

"I don't – "

"Not an option, mister. My ship, my rules. Crew gets checked out after every mission."

"So much for democracy," Len muttered, but didn't protest or break away as Mick and Ray took him to the Medical Bay.  

He didn't stop Gideon from giving him something for his headache either, as she began her checks. Not that Mick was going to let him go untreated regardless of what he wanted. While Gideon ran various tests, she started spouting science, but nothing that Mick cared about, other than the AI did seem to think Len was the same guy who got blown up at the Vanishing Point. He was also pleased to hear her agree that whatever he'd absorbed in the explosion or the aftermath, it wasn't the damn particle accelerator all over again, triggering some kind of meta gene super power. Not that Mick didn't think having a power might be cool. But if only one of them got affected like that – or Lisa ended up being left out …

Mick looked over to see Ray in the middle of one of his nerdgasms over what Gideon was saying, asking question after question, too caught up in his science to remember this was a person Gideon was going on about, not an experiment. Mick shook his head and turned back to Len, leaning down to give Len a quick buss on his forehead like they used to both do to Lisa when she'd been younger and hadn't yet inherited Len's prickliness .  

"I'm glad you're not dead, Lenny," he told him in a soft voice.

"Me, too, Mick. So you and Ray, huh. Kinda weird."

"No weirder than your thing for the Flash. At least mine's a grown up."

Of course, Ray had to prove Mick wrong, by suddenly turning toward them and spouting:

"You really are like Dr. Who. Gideon says you basically regenerated, just without changing your looks!"

"Well, when they're this good, why take the chance?" Len still responded without ragging on him, for which Mick was grateful. "Now I think someone promised me a beer?" he reminded them as he started to slide off the diagnostic chair  

"I think the only promise made was yours about explaining how you are still alive, how you got to this universe, and how you're going to get us home," Ray contradicted him, joining Mick in hovering at Len's side, though Len stood just fine and showed no dizziness, distress, or any trouble walking.

Len moved quickly out into the passageway with no intention of waiting for them to join him, though he did call back to them:

"Which I will do over a beer. And maybe a nice steak. Even a reconstituted one from Gideon is better than what I have been eating. Food here is weird, and mostly rationed. Actually, no," he suddenly stopped, speaking and walking.

Mick and Ray caught up to him. He nodded at Mick but Ray was the one who got Len's _I've-got-something-for-you_ look and a wink.

"Before that, Gideon," he started again, "will you please make sure that Sara and the Professor can hear this, Jax too if he's interested?"

"As you wish, Mr. Snart. You are now ship wide."

"In a nutshell, lady and gentlemen, when the Oculus blew, I was spit out into the timestream instead of killed," Len abruptly began explaining what had happened. "Because humans don't do well when exposed directly to the timestream, and a human mind can't really handle experiencing several timelines all at once, much less an infinite number of them, it took me some time to figure out that one, I was something beyond a stray piece of flotsam; two, I had regained self-awareness and; three, where I was _wasn't_ where I should be. I have no idea if that took me seconds, days or years to discover these vital pieces of identity, so don't bother asking," he added quickly as Ray opened his mouth.

In fact, he turned around and started walking again, toward the galley.

"Once I did remember what and who I was, I reached out for something familiar. It didn't go so well for a while, but eventually I got better at it, and the next tug from something moving through time intentionally toward the beginning of the twenty-first century, I let myself get pulled along in its wake. Not the smartest thing to do, as it turned out, since the transition bled away most of the temporal energy I seemed to have stored in my body, and the Earth I found myself on wasn't mine. I did get pretty close to the right date, February 2017. But I ended up in Wisconsin, and found out quickly that I was stuck there. Instead of Central City or Keystone, the metropolis was named Kansas City, and while I found record of both a Francisco Ramon, brother to Dante Ramon, and Star Laboratories, Cisco was a priest, and Star Labs was an audio development company, run by Cisco's brother."

They reached the galley and Mick moved ahead of Len, going for his stash of real beer to hand out, while Len wrestled with Gideon to fabricate an edible steak. Mick also pulled out of bottle of whiskey he'd hidden and it was Ray who reached for that to take a swig directly from the bottle.

"Mardon had died years earlier, after boosting a car with his brother, Lisa Snart had become Lisa Rathaway, and Michael 'Mick' Rory had followed Ben West into law enforcement, going to the police academy with Ben's son, Joe, after Ben had saved most of Mick's family from a fire. I stopped looking before I could learn whether Lewis Snart had had a wife before marrying Lisa's mom. Didn't look up the rest of you, either," Len added at the sudden influx of all of the others into the galley before seguing into, "I do hope you set the cloaking field, Sara," without even taking a breath. "We do not want our presence discovered by the people in charge during this time."

"Yeah, I got that," she responded. "We're good for now. Especially with the _Raza_ having left the star system." She reached for the whiskey, prying the bottle out of Ray's hands, but instead of tossing it away, Sara took her own slug of it.

Len smiled, real enough, but Mick could see that his partner was tired, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, even spiritually, not that Len had ever been much of a believer. Or that Mick was, really, anymore, but no one raised Catholic ever forgot what the nuns were trying to preach.

"Fortunately, before I might have thought about slashing my wrists, I remembered that I still had the brain I'd had before I died," Len continued, pouring on the ego so the others would only see that, not what Mick had read.

"There had been a reason I'd ended up in Fort Falls. Someone had gone through time to get there. So I looked for and found him. It turns out that this flavor of humanity has recently figured out a different and faster form of ftl, something they call a blink drive, which can basically teleport a ship from one star system to another in, well, a blink." The patented Snart pun and grin.

"Given that the Corporations in charge were in the midst of a cold war that has now heated up, and that they were killing off anyone involved in the blink drive research, one of those scientists used a bit of the research they hadn't bothered telling their bosses about and sent himself into the past, before they could kill him. Once there, he has his crisis of conscience about what he'd been a part of, and built a device that could recall the blink drive back to him, which brought the _Raza_ back to 2017. They were able to convince the now high school physics teacher to trust them with the drive and use it to get back to the proper time, after which I was able to convince them not to space me for having stowed away on their ship. With all that new temporal energy swirling around me, I liberated their second, broken blink drive, fiddled with it some and used it to pull the _Waverider_ to it. And here we are," he ended, spreading his hands to encompass the lot of them before picking up one of the cans of beer that Mick had set out in front of him.

Stein jumped into the silence that fell after Len finished. "But the Einstein-Cartan theory. You said it – "

"I had months to befriend the scientist. Who, incidentally, had lousy security and never locked up his research. Anyway," Len pulled himself back on track before the Professor exploded. "I was able to convince him I was a television writer, who was looking to pitch a new sci-fi show that involved time travel. We covered a lot of the more popular theories, and that's the best explanation we came up with of how my intrepid hero could survive an exploding base set within a singularities' event horizon."

Stein wanted a better explanation, while Sara tried to pin him down on what they now needed to do to get back home, and Jax started asking about the _Raza crew_. Even Ray looked like he was going to bombard Len with a question or ten. Len hadn't touched a bite of his steak, but had finished all of the water he'd gotten for himself, and was now setting the beer aside.

"All that shit can wait," Mick roared. "Gideon, if you take a look at the drive, I assume you can get us home? Preferably without knocking us out this time."

"Indeed, Mr. Rory. Being able to integrate the drive into my systems will undoubtedly make the transition much smoother this time. As far as the drive's other use – "

"Pretty sure that part is truly fried," Len told the AI. "That part of the science wasn't what I was interested in, so I only skimmed it. I – "

"Need to be left in peace," Ray interrupted this time, picking up on Mick's distress if not Len's. "Let's let Gideon get us home and save the rest for that beach in Aruba we were talking about."

"Len?" Sara questioned.

"I would appreciate the opportunity to re-acclimate. Maybe catch a nap, then maybe see what it is about Raymond that got Mick all _fired up_."

Mick laughed, then laughed harder when Blondie and the Professor groaned, and Ray and Jax both blushed. Yeah, this was his Len.  

– finis –  

 


End file.
